


If you've got power...

by Clearlyhopeful



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M, tagging is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 07:42:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18545320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clearlyhopeful/pseuds/Clearlyhopeful
Summary: Paul Mccartney and George Harrison, best friends since childhood and, in their eyes at least, future saviours of Great Britain and the world at large, attempt to start a team of like-minded mutants in post-war, vehemently mutant-fearing, early 1950s Liverpool. What could go wrong?





	If you've got power...

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware another fic with this premise has just been uploaded, but I've had this idea naggling at me for too long and needed to get it out of my system, so I'll do my best not to seem like I'm ripping off other creators' work. Otherwise, thanks for reading!

The house at the top of the hill is centuries old, sagging onto its side like a dented cardboard box , but Paul is six and the voice inside him only cares for the garden anyway.  
At least once a week, he makes the journey up the overgrown slope as fast as his chubby legs will carry him, arriving at the peak huffing and puffing, but grinning with excitement because he knows what awaits him beyond the rotted fence posts. 

Paul doesn’t remember all the things his mother says to him- all the whys and hows about the war and mutated genes and a fat man called Churchill , but he’s a good boy, and he remembers the important part- “Paulie, you musn’t let anyone see your powers, okay? Or else we’ll get taken away, and might never see each other again. And I love you far too much for that.” So Paul squashes his powers down as much as he can. He doesn’t evaporate the rain that soaks him to the skin on the way to school, doesn’t chill his school milk to make it a bit more appetising, doesn’t scald the hands of the older kids in the neighbourhood even as he’s being shoved into a lamppost on the way home.

But what Mary Mccartney forgets as she warns her son is that children, no matter how good, can only repress their basic energies for so long, and her eldest son is no different. The energy of a mutant and of a five-year-old child running through his veins calls for an outlet. So he does what any other five-year-old does- he goes exploring.

When he first spies the former grandeur of his fortress, the shadowy overgrowth surrounding it scares him off. Days pass though, and a combination of expanding awareness and peer pressure leads him to conclude that, as a boy of an age as mature as five-nearly-six, he’s not chicken enough for a few plants to scare him, and that their sheer mass will be the perfect cover for the games he wants to play. So, clutching onto the sandwiches and thermos his mother gave him as he set out on his ‘adventure’ that morning, Paul troops up the hill, fights his way through the intertwined shrubbery and struggles over the rotted, formerly green palings.

Landing with a muffled thump on grass and sandwich, the hero takes a well-deserved rest, munching on bread and whatever leftovers his ration-restricted mother had been able to scrounge out of the larder for sandwich filling. Surveying the overgrown paths, the cracked tiles, the overflowing pots and beds, Paul concludes that this place has been waiting for someone like him to arrive. He grabs the jagged edge of a strawberry leaf and allows it to smoulder in his hands, then freezes its fruit into rocks. Now, where should he begin?

The fortress, as Paul likes to call it, is his secret. His friends, no matter how close, don’t surpass his need for privacy, and even though his Mum and Dad have powers like him, respectively making water pool in outstretched palms and blowing paper airplanes up the stairs after a lot of begging, they suppressed the urges to use them long ago. He has yet to meet anyone worthy of this trust.

“Paul, darling, this is George. He’s Mrs. Harrison’s son, you know, my friend from school? Would you like to show him around outside?” Paul doesn’t really want to play with a baby like this, but he knows what questions like that mean from an adult. He gets up from his toy cars, grabs the pale hand of skinny little George, and drags him out to the square of grass behind the house. “I’mPaulandthisisthegarden”, he rushes out before plopping down and turning his back on the younger boy until he hears him wandering off to another corner of the garden. He waits for a while after that, until he realizes that he can’t really go back inside without being told off and has no toys to play with out here, and thus that George is his only real option for entertainment. Strolling the metre or two up to the hunched figure, Paul freezes. The grass around George isn’t grass any more. It’s grown bigger, more colourful, and seems to be evolving even as Paul stares at it. “D-d-did you do this?” stutters Paul. George seems to shrink in on himself a little before answering, as if bracing himself for impact. “Yeah, but you can’t tell my Mum. She’ll give me the biggest growling ever.” With all the sincerity a six year old can muster, Paul grins and moves to sit next to George, beginning to warm his hands as he does so. “Only if you don’t show mine this.”

Soon, the two boys are the closest of friends, staying at one another’s houses, hanging out at school (as soon as George notices that Paul is actually in the same year as him), and, eventually, at Paul’s castle, which, within a few weeks, is theirs. They spend hours upon days upon months there, George regrowing the plants as fast as Paul can freeze or burn them, and, as the months become years, and six-almost-seven becomes eight-almost-nine becomes ten, their powers become as essential, as integral to them as walking and talking. Through it all, the castle is as their constant refuge.

Then one day, their sanctum is compromised. George runs up to Paul as he’s freezing the leaves on a tangled rosebush to the point of shattering, whisper-shouting that he’s just seen a car struggle up the driveway. They scamper off into the bushes and get over the fence just as the crunch of gravel and the creak of a long-disused door reach their ears.

As George and Paul run and trip and somersault down the hill, back into the safe grey streets of the township, Paul sneaks one last look back. The dark glass eyes of the house blink on, winking at the boy as a pair of figures move about inside. The boys pick themselves up and, hesitantly, dust off and trot back home. 

It’s only in bed that night that Paul breaks and starts to shed tears for his lost castle. The safety to dream is also the safety to realize that the garden and his powers, just like the rest of the Lennon property, are now well and truly beyond his control.


End file.
